heard nothing, that gave her pause.
Arkur lay just inside, apparently slain by a single blow that cleaved him cleanly from right shoulder to left hip-a hideous, jagged mirror of Ellowaine's own sash of rank. To judge by the drag marks, he'd been attacked in the passageway and hauled messily into the chamber.
Across the room, Ischina sprawled beside the decomposing mattress. Her blade lay beside her, shattered into steel splinters, and little remained of face and skull save a dripping ruin of mangled flesh. Largely hidden by the carnage, a tiny weed grew through the buckling floorboards. It wore an array of needle-like thorns as a crown, several of which appeared to be missing. Ellowaine knelt and found them protruding through the leather sole of Ischina's left boot.
And Ellowaine damn well knew witchcraft when she saw it.
She opened her mouth to bark an order at Quinran, but froze at the gaping shock on his face. His pupils flickered wildly from side to side, and then he was gone from the doorway.
Ellowaine followed at a run, rounding the corner just in time to see him reach the building's front door. He hauled it open, and she clearly heard his cry of 'Get in here!'
'Corporal Quinran!' Then, when he reacted not all, 'Gods damn it, Corporal!' She reached his side and hurled him against the wall by his shoulders. 'What the hell are you doing?'
'Need help,' he wheezed, even as Corporal Rephiran pounded up the steps and into the building, seeking targets for his crossbow.
'My call!' Ellowaine growled, shoving him once more into the wall for good measure before releasing him. 'Don't you ever countermand my orders without checking with me first!'
'Understood,' Quinran whimpered.
'Arkur and Ischina are down,' she told Rephiran. 'Enemies still unknown. We-'
She whirled at the sudden thump, watched one of the open doors drifting on its single remaining hinge-and allowed herself to breathe once more. It was just a feral cat, tortoise-haired. It stood in the hallway, hissing at them, back arched and tail bushy.
From what was now behind her, where the last survivors of her squad waited, came a burbling, stomach- turning crunch. Again she spun, just in time to see Rephiran slide to the floor, brains spilling from his shattered skull. Quinran just shrugged, shook the worst of the gore from his sword, and lunged.
Ellowaine's hatchets rose in a perfect parry, catching the blade between them and shrugging it to one side. With the rightmost she lashed out, and the treacherous corporal sucked in his breath as he leapt back, dodging the hatchet with nothing to spare.
Furious at the loss of her men, shamed that she'd never suspected the traitor in their midst, Ellowaine shrieked, leaping at her foe over Rephiran's mangled body. Her hatchets buzzed from all directions, a swarm of enraged hornets with lethal stings. Quinran backpedaled, and only the unnatural speed of his desperate parries kept his limbs attached. His body and face flickered as his concentration lapsed, and Ellowaine realized that poor Quinran, the real Quinran, probably lay dead upstairs. Well, she'd see who she fought soon enough…
And then she could only scream, leg buckling beneath her. With a strength and accuracy impossible in any normal animal, the alley cat had come up behind and sunk its teeth through the leather of her boot, into the flesh and tendon of her ankle.
She toppled, caught herself against the wall, and looked up just in time for the haft of her foe's weapon- revealed, now that the illusion was fading, as an axe, not a sword-to completely fill her vision. She felt the skull at her temple flex beneath the impact of the heavy shaft, and then the pain, along with the rest of the world, went away.
The Prurient Pixie had, for Ellowaine, more unpleasant memories and restless ghosts on tap than it had any of the more traditional sorts of spirits. In her mind, overlaid across the sawdust- and dirt-caked floor of the common room, she still saw dozens of men laid out in rows, slowly dying of agonizing poison. Sitting amid the various drinkers, she saw friends long gone; over the din of conversation, she heard Teagan's boisterous laugh. The clink of every coin was a knife-thrust to her soul, a reminder of all she'd been promised, and lost.
And through every open door, she saw, for just an instant, a glimpse of that cursed helm, and the lying bastard who'd worn it.
No, given her druthers, she'd never have come back here, or to the town of Vorringar at all. But this was where he was, so if she would speak with him, here she must come.
He'd arrived at the Pixie first and had, rather predictably, chosen a booth far from, but with a clear view of, the door. (She wondered idly if it had been empty, or if he'd cowed someone into leaving.) He barely fit in the chair, and the mug of ale looked like a child's cup in his meaty fist. The razor-edged shield that made up the lower portion of his left arm rested on the table, doubtless leaving deep scores in the wood.
Their greeting had gone well enough, and they'd passed several pleasant moments in friendly reminiscence and talking shop about weapons and tactics. Unfortunately, when she'd finally steered the conversation around to her current needs, any luck Panare had bestowed upon her swiftly ran out.
'Losalis, please. You know me. You know damn well I wouldn't ask anything of you-of anyone-if I wasn't desperate.'
'I know,' he told her in his deep baritone. 'If it was up to me, Ellowaine, I'd have already brought you on. Nobody knows better than I do just how good you are.'
'But it's not up to you.' It was not a question.
'No. I have to clear any new commissions with the baron, and I can already tell you what he'll say. I'll try anyway, if you want me to, but it'll be a waste of your time to wait around for his answer.'
'Why me,' she asked him, 'and not you?' Her tone was bitter, yes, but not at him. She blamed many for her fate-and one in particular above all others-but she would not make Losalis a scapegoat just because it was a fate he'd managed to escape.
'I've wondered about that, a little,' he said. 'Partly, I think, it's simply that I've had my reputation longer than you. Also, my company's a lot bigger. People are less willing to go without.
'But mostly? I'd have to suggest it's because you were with him inside Mecepheum. Sure, generals and commanders saw me leading his forces, but the nobles and the Guildmasters watched you standing right beside him. I don't think they're likely to forget that anytime soon.'
Ellowaine nodded sourly. 'It always comes back to Rebaine, doesn't it? I think I'd willingly put up with everything that's happened if I could just get my hands on him for a few minutes in exchange.'
Losalis nodded noncommittally, and for a few moments they lost themselves in drink.
'Did you know,' she said softly, 'that I've lost half my men in the last four years? Not on the battlefield, I mean they just left. Loyal as they've always been, they wouldn't stick with a commander who couldn't find them work, and I can't blame them.'
The larger mercenary leaned back, ignoring his chair's desperate creaks of protest. He had, indeed, known Ellowaine a long time-and he knew what she was asking, even indirectly, and how hard it must be for her.
'I can take them,' he said with a surprising gentleness. 'Not all at once-I don't think I can convince the baron I need that many new swords. But it'll provide work for some, and the rest are welcome to join my company when we start looking for our next contract.'
For the first time in years, Ellowaine smiled and meant it. 'Thank you, Losalis.' At least now I'm only failing myself, not them.
'There might be something else I can offer you,' he said, as though reading her thoughts or her future in the swirling suds of his tankard. 'Nothing I'm positive about, mind you, just some whispers through the usual channels. Someone's putting an operation together, they're looking for Imphallian mercenaries, and I don't think they're likely to care that you were part of Rebaine's campaign.'
Ellowaine tilted her head. 'Imphallian mercenaries?'
'Yeah, you'd need to do a bit of traveling. How do you feel about the kingdom of Cephira?'
'If they pay, I'll feel any damn way about them they want.'
It was, distressingly, the throbbing in her skull that convinced her she was alive. For long moments she didn't move, even to open her eyes. Mentally she ran through weapons drills and strategic puzzles, carefully examined a few randomly chosen memories, even took the time for some quick addition and multiplication. She found herself a bit slow, occasionally not as accurate as she'd have liked, but eventually the proper answers and images swam to the fore through the churning tide of pain.
